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Outmoded, inflexible and server-based service management software can make it difficult for companies to grow. However, thanks to the fully automated, integrated and optimised cloud-based workflows facilitated by Tesseract, SCS Technologies Ltd has found scaling up a piece of cake.

SCS is a leading UK-based provider of technological solutions to hospitality, retail, utilities and telecommunications companies, along with local authorities and social housing organisations. Its solutions include TV systems from Samsung, Philips and LG, Wi-Fi, satellite services, TV distribution systems, digital signage, and security systems such as CCTV and access control. High-profile clients include BT, Next and Vodafone. It also provides and maintains the TV systems for every Travelodge in the UK, which amounts to approximately 40,000 rooms in over 540 hotels.

SCS has been using Tesseract’s field service management software for the past 18 years. At first it was used for call handling only, but has since grown into a cradle-to-grave system covering everything from contracts to scheduling to logistics and stock management.

Clearing space for a new meeting room

Tesseract has allowed SCS to go completely paperless. Job sheets no longer exist. Engineers use their smartphones to access job, site and contract information, input service reports, and get electronic signatures from customers to close down jobs. Parts are requested and tracked through the system, and invoices are sent automatically from the database to the customer, rather than being printed out and posted via Royal Mail. This saves time as well as paper. The days of looking after everything with six whiteboards on the office walls are a fading memory.

“Not only have we been able to drastically reduce paper, printing and postage costs,” says Mark Kenyon, Managing Director for SCS, “but we’ve also saved massive amounts of space. One of the rooms in our office used to be wall to wall with paperwork and filing cabinets. Now we use it as a meeting room.”

Scaling up with SaaS

For many years, SCS used an on-premise version of Tesseract’s software that the company purchased outright and hosted on its own server. A few years ago, SCS upgraded to Tesseract’s Service Centre 5.1 (SC5.1). This is a cloud-based version, hosted in-house by Tesseract and licensed on a subscription basis — better known as software as a service or SaaS.

SCS moved to SaaS for a number of reasons. First was the heavy IT burden that comes with on-premise software. Maintenance, fixes and updates aren’t instant. You either have to handle them yourself, or call your provider to assist you. It meant that SCS’s system didn’t move forwards at the same pace as Tesseract, because time and money sometimes inhibited the company from integrating the latest improvements.

With SaaS, all maintenance, fixes and updates are done in-house by Tesseract and distributed instantaneously to all users. It means that SCS is always up to date. And because all data is backed up centrally too, this saves SCS from having to back up its server in order to keep its data secure.

 

There’s also less risk with SaaS. Using on-premise software meant that if SCS’s server was damaged somehow, e.g. by fire, then the company wouldn’t be able to operate. Using Tesseract’s SaaS means that if something were to happen now, SCS’s teams could still access the system and work from home.

These benefits combined have allowed SCS to grow much faster than on-premise software allows. Mark Kenyon explains, “Tesseract has been key to our ability to expand our teams and acquire other companies. We purchased a local company in 2015, absorbed another in 2016, and took on staff from a company that had gone into liquidation later that same year — all made simpler and easier by the flexibility and scalability of Tesseract’s SaaS. Things are definitely better in the cloud.”

More visibility, more accuracy

SCS enjoys far greater visibility with Tesseract. The elimination of paper and centralisation of all its field service data means that everybody can see what’s happened or happening on a job. Service reports, invoices, purchase orders, parts requests and stock movements are all on the system for everyone to access in real time. This makes reporting and responding to customer queries faster, easier and more accurate, and eradicates any data gaps caused by the loss of paperwork.

It’s improved the accuracy of SCS’s invoices, too. Carol Newall, HR and Finance Manager for SCS, says, “In the past, the odd extra 10 minutes might not have been billed, and certain small replacement parts were sometimes missed. Now that the system automatically calculates timings and tracks every part, every opportunity for revenue is captured. Thanks to Tesseract, nothing gets missed.”

A roadmap for the future

SCS hasn’t managed to eliminate all manual processes from its service operation just yet. Quotes are still done manually, and there’s currently no way of checking which quote was accepted, apart from going back into emails and comparing figures. This makes it difficult for SCS to track its margins. As a result, Tesseract’s Quote Centre and Prospect Centre are part of SCS’s roadmap for the future.

Another module SCS will soon seek to implement is Tesseract’s Repair Centre. At first, SCS didn’t think it was needed. But since repairs are managed manually, the lack of visibility is fast becoming an area for improvement in SCS’s otherwise very efficient service chain. SCS is keen to implement Repair Centre so that everyone in the company can track the movements of faulty or damaged parts without having to trawl through the minutiae of a spreadsheet.

 

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Resource Type: Written Guide
Published by:  Cognito iQ
Title: Your Guide to Flawless Field Service - Perfecting Productivity

 

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Synopsis:

Outside of the field service industry, the growth of big data and analytics is old news. The most advanced organisations have already gone beyond the hype and have developed strategies that are delivering exciting performance-enhancing results. For example, Leicester City’s surprise Premier League win was based on the club’s expert use of football data analytics. Stories such as this are why Gartner say “Data and analytics are taking centre stage as the single most powerful catalyst for change in the enterprise”.

However, field service companies have been slower to achieve similar levels of success from the use of advanced analytics. Whilst in many organisations there is plenty of data available, it can be hard to use effectively: the data may not be sufficiently accurate or timely, and service professionals may lack the skills and tools they need. But this is changing. Field service organisations are getting smarter with both the data they collect and how they use it.

Over this series of three special guides, Cognito iQ demonstrate how simple analytics can make a significant difference to three key components of field service excellence:

• Customer Satisfaction
• Employee Engagement
• Productivity (the subject of this first instalment)

 

Overview:

Topics covered and addressed in this white paper include:

Expectations of field service have never been higher

Customers are used to the speed of delivery and quality of service that they get from consumer companies such as Amazon; this has raised the bar for all service companies. Customers want a service appointment quickly, they want smaller appointment windows and they expect your field worker to have the right information as well as the skills, knowledge and parts to resolve their issue first time.

So how do field service organisations provide a better service to their customers, with fewer resources?

So how do you improve productivity?

To answer that question, you have to know what productivity means to your business. All businesses will have a different definition and an individual approach. For example, would you be happy to drive up the number of visits per day your field workers attend if that meant fewer first time fixes, or reduced customer satisfaction scores?

The old adage is that you can’t manage what you can’t measure but, these days, companies know that it is a bit more complicated than that – measurement for its own sake or using the wrong metrics to set targets can be counter-productive.

 

It is vital to know how to measure success: which metrics are useful and which aren’t, which can be accurately determined and which can’t, how metrics interact and how setting goals and targets will affect how employees go about their jobs.

Perfecting productivity

Continual improvement is a well-established practice that seeks to increase customer value, reduce waste and optimise resources via incremental change, feedback and analysis. These techniques originated in manufacturing; on a production line, it is relatively simple to measure variables such as number of defects, as you can easily see how the work is being done and you can observe the impact when you make changes to the process.

But as continual improvement methodologies have developed, they have been profitably applied in many other industries, so why not field service operations?

With the right data, it is possible to adopt a proactive, systematic approach, breaking down the processes within the operation.

 

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Want to know more? Access to this resource is available to Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Field Service Professional? Click here to apply for a complimentary industry subscription to Field Service News and get the white paper "Your Guide to Flawless Field Service - Perfecting Productivity" sent directly to your inbox now

 

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Not one for a load of legalese? Neither are we - that's why we put together a jargon-free version of our T&Cs on our subscription page which you'll find here

 

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ServicePower Inc. a market leader in field service management solutions, has recently released a new Customer Experience service solution that combines its patented Artificial Intelligence engine with its new Gantt, maps, dashboards, improved technician mobile enablement features, and a new integrated registration, diagnostic, self-scheduling and point-of-sale enabled Customer Portal.

This integrated solution is new to the industry, being the first solution to help field service organisations drive a faster, smarter end-customer experience, while also improving the effectiveness of field technicians and operations teams.

“Customer experience is key. This product release uses the latest in artificial intelligence, real-time engagement and mobility tools to deliver a better, and more digitised experience,” said Marne Martin, CEO of ServicePower. “Customers and technicians care about great service, which ServicePower now can deliver it in a differentiated way.  Our suite of solutions eliminate many of the frustrations customers experience when requesting installations, maintenance or service.”

ServicePower drives faster service for the end customer. 

The Customer Experience release empowers end-customer users to instantly book appointments through an integrated self-service portal, on any device, utilizing the patented AI technology. Relying on ServicePower to seamlessly book employed and credentialed contracted field technicians using its smart brokering technology, field service organisations can delight customers with faster response times and a consistent, branded service experience, while providing greater call center efficiencies at the same time. The new release also improves visibility for customers through real-time job status notifications and technician location information, enables customers to upload diagnostic and triage information, and engage with their technician as a trusted advisor. Customers gain improved control over their own experience, uploading and viewing job related information and configuring notifications from the platform.

ServicePower drives a smarter service experience for the mobile field technician.  

With the Customer Experience release the field service team gains a market leading set of capabilities, enabling predictive maintenance, higher repair success rates, and delivery of a more personalised service experience to end-customers. Technicians have access to a more complete customer data set, including all relevant job, customer, asset and part information to deliver higher first time fix rates, while being able to push data downstream, improving manufacturing and long-term product viability for customers.  Extensive product catalogs and pricing capabilities enable technicians to deliver parts, accessories and service offers in person, adding value to each customer interaction.

ServicePower drives a unified experience for service operations. 

The Customer Experience release enables field service operators to streamline field service operations, from entitlement and claims management to scheduling, labor and parts forecasting, reporting and analytics. ServicePower’s modern interfaces and patented AI-scheduling algorithm improves customer processes such as appointment booking, with employed or contracted field personnel, while driving productivity up and costs down.  Responsive, collaborative dashboards improve visibility of operations, driving improvements for both the customer and the technician.

Marne Martin, CEO, ServicePower said “This latest Fall 2017 product release is all about changing the service paradigm to incorporate the latest in AI technology, digitisation, and a great user experience to empower the technician to deliver great service and the end-customer to manage their own engagement with service organisations, when and where they want, with clear visibility of technicians’ visits, so they know what’s going on. Technicians enjoy providing faster, smarter service, so they can delight the customer and provide more value. Our focus is about streamlining operations on a unified platform to provide a better experience for all, continuing to innovate with new features targeted across the entire service ecosystem.”

 

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ServicePower recently hosted an excellent webinar the discussed the Customer Experience release on which you can access here

 

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Marne Martin, CEO of ServicePower explains why the connected customer is far more than just a marketing buzz phrase and focuses on the benefits of a truly unified platform...

In today’s consumer-centric economy, companies must do more than manufacture solid products for the home or business. Consumers consider the entire product lifetime value, from point of sale to the service experience, when deciding to buy.

They rely on sources other than brick and mortar showrooms to research and select products, often going to the web and most importantly other consumers’ reviews of products online. The connected consumer is no longer just marketing speak, and customers expect a differentiated service experience also from their connected devices or equipment.

What defines good service?

Whether providing service to a connected home or business, or simply on a faulty appliance or television, inspecting a wrecked automobile or damaged roof, installing a security system or a delivering healthcare supplies, ‘good service’ encompasses more than simply referring a consumer to a call center and then a service employee or contractor who may or may not call to schedule an appointment.

That model started changing in the early 1990’s with the growth in adoption of field service management software. Today, consumers expect more of service providers than scheduling an appointment and waiting for a technician to arrive.

What defines a great service experience?

A great service experience relies on improving the entire service lifecycle by providing Faster, Smarter Service on a Unified platform. The best field service management software supports the entire lifecycle, empowering consumers to digitally engage with you, enabling field technicians to deliver personalised service and providing a unified platform with modular functionality on which service operations can continuously optimise ongoing service delivery.

Let’s discuss how each below offers a digital, connected process that is differentiated from that of old.

Digital Engagement

Consumer engagement is critical to faster service. Providing an intelligent digital experience which enables customers to book appointments at their convenience with your trained and credentialed workforce, check status, communicate with technicians and track their locations is expected in today’s digital economy.

You also need one place that diagnostic data and added triage information available from the customer or the connected device or piece of equipment, service history, asset information that is easily available for both the customer and the technician. The days are gone where you want to send a technician out for something that can be handled remotely. Likewise, customers want to do more online, such as registering product purchases, buying additional products and services, and posting reviews of the service experience.

 

Consumers can research purchases and buy online, right now. Their expectations for service post-sale is exactly the same, and they also want their service experience to be ideally such that they want to buy more from the product or service brand.

The best field service management solutions easily engage consumers where, when and how they desire with the service contract provider.

Technician Enablement

Field service technicians, insurance adjusters, installers, delivery personnel- they are the heart and the face of the post-sale experience. As service industry employees, it is in their very nature to want to do well by your customers, to be faster and smarter at their jobs, so that they can delight every customer and walk away feeling accomplished. Enable them with the tools to do so as generally speaking, customers and technicians want the same thing – more up-time and better first time resolution rates.

Field service management and mobile software enables your teams to deliver faster, smarter service. Customer engagement software provides an end-to-end digital experience.

Artificial Intelligence-based scheduling software automatically positions techs for success, selecting the best resource for every job, and scheduling shorter, realistic service windows that techs can achieve, making service delivery faster for consumers. IoT integration revolutionises the service model, allowing field techs to proactively service and maintain products before they fail, and predicting future service requirements such that service contracts can be used to extend product life-cycles beyond the traditional break-fix model.

 

Mobile software with access to assets, inventory, service history, information and expert resources makes techs smarter at every appointment, armed to resolve issues through personalized service delivery, and adding value for consumers through additional services which improve the long term value of every product.

Unified Platform

Field service and mobile workforce management software set the stage for faster, smarter service delivery with a Unified - and integrated - platform.

Functional groups ranging from manufacturing and quality, to IT, marketing and sales, customer service and field service delivery require a unified platform which supports the full customer service lifecycle.

A unified platform improves your organisations ability to deliver faster, smarter services with employees, contractors or both, increasing service capacity and decreasing time to service. It can also standardises onsite process with configurable mobility, while decreasing the cost of service with schedule optimisation and dynamic, logic based contractor dispatching. No longer do you want to be making myopic decisions that don’t enhance your brand and the service experience for your customers.

 

A unified platform improves the process of performing service on your behalf for contractors, creating a faster, smarter model through integrated warranty claims management, which also reduces claim costs and fraud, ultimately better protecting warranty reserves.

A unified platform is the basis on which a great consumer experience is executed.

Transformational Service

The customers’ service experience with your organisation can be transformational.

Delivering faster, smarter service using a unified platform enables your field technicians to drive a better experience for your customers.

Customers experiencing great service become your most effective marketing and sales tools, loudly evangelizing about their experience through positive reviews, increasing sales, brand loyalty and long term service revenue.

ServicePower’s field service management solution empowers any organisation with a mobile workforce to deliver Faster, Smarter Service, while providing a Unified experience for customers, field technicians and your organisation.

We also offers a fully managed network of 3rd party service providers to enable rapid and high-quality on-demand “spill-over” servicing at peak times and in hard-to-reach locations across North America and the Europe.

 

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When Planned Lighting Maintenance (PLM) decided that its field service management system needed to be as smart as its lighting solutions, Tesseract came to light the way. Now Tesseract’s Service Centre 5.1 is brightening PLM’s days with super-fast scheduling and dispatch, instantaneous invoicing, and an end to coffee-stained job sheets.

A big change before a big birthday

Established in 1968, PLM is a family business that designs, installs and maintains lighting solutions for commercial premises and leading UK retailers. This year, finding itself approaching the big 50 in an increasingly service-oriented economy, PLM realised it was time for a change. Specifically, an overhaul of its long-winded, labour-intensive service management system.

The software PLM had before Tesseract was very limited in what it could do. Over the years PLM built an intranet to try and fill in the gaps, but there was no automation and everything took a lot of time.

Tracey Hughes, Business Support Services Director for PLM, says, “Our intranet reduced some of the data entry, but increased the checks we had to do. And it was slow, manual processes every step of the way. Dispatchers had to select an appropriate engineer for a job by remembering who was doing what, and which engineers were allocated to which postcode. Engineers would have to phone the office to let us know what stock they’d used, and to request more. And the whole system was heavily reliant on paper — handwritten job sheets from engineers that were sometimes unreadable or covered in coffee stains!”

 

These manual processes became increasingly onerous as PLM tried to keep up with the demands of the modern customer and stay profitable. It was losing revenue because of paperwork-related delays, and had to employ more people each time it took on a new contract. The trigger was losing confidence in its financial reporting. PLM’s admin teams would be gathering information from two, three or four different places — normally a slew of human error-prone Excel spreadsheets — and would have to decide which source was accurate. They eventually lost faith in what the data was telling them.

PLM decided it needed something with more automation, more accuracy and more efficiency — and far less reliance on paper.

The search for a new solution

To investigate options, PLM’s IT manager went to the annual Field Service Management Expo in London and met with five different software providers. These five were whittled down to three, one of which was Tesseract. PLM received a series of presentations about Service Centre 5.1 from Tesseract’s, which were attended by a team of eight from PLM, including several of its engineers.

Hughes explains, “We really liked Kevin. His presentations were simple and easy to follow and we were impressed by how quickly he understood our business.

We then met with one of Tesseract’s clients, Artic Building Services. We were completely bowled over by how well they were doing and how much they’d grown thanks to Tesseract. They were very, very enthusiastic and literally all of their issues and problems prior to implementation were gone. We felt like they were exactly the same as us, but five years on.”

Convinced, PLM took a phased approach to implementing the full suite of software that Tesseract offers, including Call Control, Customer Assets, Parts Centre, Invoice Centre, and Remote Engineer Access (REA).

More control, more visibility, more time to spare

Tesseract’s service management software has provided PLM with an end-to-end workflow that is automated, integrated and optimised. As soon as a call is logged, the system sources the contact information for that customer and tells you what you can and can’t do. Then the information is transmitted automatically to the phone of the engineer who is closest to the customer’s site.

With REA, engineers can log in remotely using their smartphones, input service reports directly onto the system, and obtain electronic sign-off from customers in order to close down jobs. Use and replenishment of stock is also managed directly through the Tesseract system.

 

Hughes explains, “With Tesseract, there’s far less admin and data entry and we’ve managed to reduce the number of staff doing admin from seven to four. We have much better visibility of our engineers and their workloads, and can see what’s been completed and billed and what hasn’t without having to make a ton of phone calls. This lets us answer customer queries faster and easier because we’re able to see exactly what stage a job is at.”

Hughes adds, “We also have much faster turnaround on our invoicing. On the old system, it could take up to ten days because we had to wait for paperwork to come in from our engineers. Now that all the information we need is right there on the system, same-day invoicing is the new normal.”

 

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We take a look at how UK window and doors specialist SafeStyle UK improved their field service efficiency by turning to FSM provider Exel Computer Systems 

Business imperative

With 13 installation and 36 sales branches around the UK, and a 600-employee factory manufacturing over 6,000 doors and windows each week, Bradford-headquartered Safestyle is one of the country’s leading businesses in the replacement door and window market.

But by late 2013, the company recognised that it needed to update its aftersales customer service capabilities, which had become spread over three distinct systems, giving rise to inefficiencies and data duplication.

Challenge

The core system was a decade-old customer care system, directly fed from Safestyle’s ERP system, which handled maintenance work associated with the ten-year guarantee that Safestyle offers its customers.

In addition, any aftersales maintenance necessitated by customer complaints was handled by a second system. This did not benefit from a data feed from the ERP system, and so required manual data entry.

Finally, a specialist scheduling system handled service engineer scheduling and routing, creating the service engineers’ daily work programmes and vehicle routings.

While each system worked acceptably well when viewed in isolation, a very different picture emerged when they were viewed as a whole.

 

Service engineer visibility required enhancements to go to the next level, management reporting was limited, and opportunities for better scheduling were being missed.

In addition, adds Nick Stokes, Safestyle’s IT Change Manager, the whole process was overly reliant on paper, using printed work schedules against which service engineers would report progress by telephone, requiring headquarters staff to manually update the relevant system.

Clearly, schedules provided on tablet computers, and directly updated by the service engineers themselves, would be far more efficient, as well as providing real-time progress visibility.

Finally, adds Nick, the core legacy system was becoming both difficult and expensive to maintain.

“As a business, we’re passionate about customer service, and so retiring these various systems and replacing them with something that was both newer and better would be an obvious step forward,” he recalls.

The only question: replacing them with what, exactly?

Why Eagle Field Service? 

Consequently, in early 2014, Safestyle began surveying the marketplace for field service management systems, and subsequently invited a number of suppliers to submit quotations for supplying a replacement system.

The clear winner: Exel Computer Systems’ Eagle Field Service solution.

“From a functional and ease-of-use perspective, it offered all the functionality that we were looking for,” recalls Nick, “in addition, although this hadn’t been a formal requirement, we could see that we might, in future, want to be able to use elements of Exel’s EFACS E/8 ERP system. So for a variety of reasons, going with Exel and Eagle Field Service made good sense.”

This is due to the fact that Eagle Field Service is an element of the EFACS E/8 ERP solution, utilising the functionality and modules required, such as Document Management and Workflow.

Should a client require the manufacturing functionality, licences are bought, the modules implemented and the staff trained.

Implementation

Implementation began in early 2015, with a goal of commencing a phased rollout by the third quarter of the year.

Implementation was straightforward, recalls Nick, noting that as Eagle Field Service’s intuitive interface and ease-of-use is driven by a rules-based engine, time had to be devoted to creating the required rules. In addition, he points out, the move away from paper schedules to tablet computers called for careful testing, the provision of user training and thorough User Acceptance Testing.

 

“Customer service is important to us,” he stresses, “it was better to be right, than rushed.”

But with testing and training complete, rollout began as planned, and was completed within a few weeks.

Business benefits

The move to Eagle Field Service, relates Nick, has delivered a number of very distinct benefits. The user experience—both for headquarters staff, and service engineers—is far more intuitive, and enables people to work more efficiently.

“There’s no need to tab between different systems,” he explains, “all the information that people want is in one place.”

What’s more, in the case of Safestyle’s service engineers, that ‘one place’ is a simple and easy-to-use tablet interface—an interface that also provides real-time updates back to Safestyle’s headquarters, as jobs are completed.

Moreover, adds Nick, the scheduling of service engineers isn’t just easier than before, it’s also more powerful, resulting in a more efficient routing of engineer visits, and better optimisation of engineers’ time.

 

Roll it all together, and the combined effect of a reduction in paperwork, the elimination of duplication and data entry, and better engineer scheduling, has enabled a significant improvement in engineer utilisation, notes Nick.

Finally, the move to Eagle Field Service has delivered better reporting—reporting not just of metrics such as customer service levels and engineer efficiencies, but also the detailed reporting of faults and maintenance issues.

“By providing data on the underlying reasons for service calls, Eagle Field Service has given us an enhanced ability to perform root cause analysis, giving us much better visibility into particular parts that are subject to early failure, so that we can address this during design and manufacture.” concludes Nick.

“This has always been an objective—and now we have achieved it.”

 

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In the first part of this feature, Tesseract’s Kevin McNally explored the importance of contract management and workforce scheduling within a field service management system. Now in the concluding part of this feature he looks at three other key elements of a modern FSM system...

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Click here to apply for your subscription now and we’ll send you the white paper to your inbox now instantly as a thank you for your time!
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Mobile tools and communications: 

It is fair to say that the biggest revolution in field service has come from the rapid explosion in mobile computing power. Today’s smartphones are capable of greater computing tasks than even the laptops of just a few years back.

For the field service organisation this is fantastic as it puts information at the field service engineers finger tips, empowers them to spend far more time on maintenance and repair and far less on activities such as paper work and enables them to deliver a far more effective and impressive service experience for the customer.

[quote float="left"]The real key to a FSM solution is the ability to keep a number of differing business units all on the same page at once, [/quote]The real key to a FSM solution is the ability to keep a number of differing business units all on the same page at once, and the mobile aspect is the key to ensuring the field service engineers – perhaps the most vital cog in the service operation wheel, are kept up to date (and are keeping their colleagues updated about their own progress) whilst working remotely.

For the field service engineer, his FSM app is perhaps now the most important tool in his belt, but if it is cumbersome to use its benefits may well be underused and much of its true value lost. Therefore, for those seeking a new FSM solution the mobile app is a key area for scrutiny. If you are already working with an FSM system it is worth considering getting some feedback on this aspect of the mobile app from your engineers and taking this back to your FSM provider – a good systems partner will always value such feedback and often if there are areas where you feel the solution can be improved, these will likely be felt by other companies using the same solution, so such changes may well surface in the not too distant future in a new update.

Parts & Inventory Management: 

[quote]Part’s Management is a real fundamental piece of the puzzle that is overlooked by many companies – Kevin McNally, Tesseract[/quote]  

Parts and Inventory management is perhaps an area that in the past has not received the focus and attention that it requires. It has often been the mantra of field service organisations that they are aiming to the get the right engineer to the right job, at the right time. But that all becomes moot if the right engineer doesn’t have the right parts to hand as well. Consistently at industry conferences parts management remains a hot button and a common pain point.

One area where many companies get themselves caught out is by thinking that they can use a system such as a financial system that is designed at best for companies whose stock resides in static places such as warehouses and stores.

However, field service is far more dynamic than that, with parts moving back and forth and in and out of locations constantly each and every day.

In no time at all a company that isn’t using a system designed with field service in mind will soon find themselves having to find workarounds to make their system work, which ultimately will mean a far less accurate understanding of stock levels, which can only ever lead to unnecessary spending and a negative impact on the bottom line.

But there are other less obvious impacts poor stock management can have as well.

[quote float="right"]Field service is far more dynamic than that, with parts moving back and forth and in and out of locations constantly each and every day.[/quote]For instance, in such a set up stock realistically can usually only be written off once it has been invoiced. However, in the dynamic world of field service that is of course too late. It could be quite conceivable that an engineer visit could be scheduled with a customer based on a specific part being in stock but in fact whilst there is one of those parts remaining in the inventory, the reality could be that it has already been fitted but just not written off yet as the job hasn’t been invoiced.

For example, lets say an engineer who is onsite is unable to complete a first time fix, but is able to identify a faulty component and then order it whilst still with the customer - giving them a confirmed date for a second appointment when the needed maintenance can be undertaken.

This is a far more powerful and commanding response compared to the negative situation we often find ourselves in where an engineer cannot find the right part – and he just heads off to his next job, leaving the first customer to wait for an unconfirmed rescheduled appointment whilst they try to track down the right part.

In one example we see an engineer empowered by his technology, the other he is hampered by the lack of it.

Integration: 

We are living in a world of data lakes, data rivers, data mountains and all other types of data topography it seems! But all these vast swathes of data are meaningless unless you are able to draw insight from it, and quite often that means being able to let the data flow seamlessly from one set of business applications to another

[quote float="left"]We are seeing more and more companies offering ‘off the shelf’ or ‘out of the box’ integration with the leading CRM, ERP and even Telematics solutions.[/quote] Integration varies from provider to provider but often it is led by the integrations they have been asked to undertake, so if your current provider or a provider you have identified as being a good fit for your business don’t advertise integration with a specific system you are using – it is worth discussing the possibilities with them especially if it is a common platform so making their product work with it may be useful for other future clients also.

We are seeing more and more companies offering ‘off the shelf’ or ‘out of the box’ integration with the leading CRM, ERP and even Telematics solutions.

It is worth discussing with your providers how they are future proofing their products when it comes to integration – there is for example a large amount of proprietary technology centred around IoT at the moment and until accepted universal protocols are in place you want to make sure any technology you have invested in today is going to be of use tomorrow.

Tesseract is the leading service management software provider in Europe and have been in the Field Service Business for over 30 years.   For further information contact Tesseract on 01494 465066 or www.tesseract.co.uk
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Contact information: 

Phone: +1-877 573 4353
Web: www.fieldnation.com
Email: salesteam@fieldnation.com

Services Provided by Field Nation:

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All About Field Nation:

Field Nation brings companies and workers together to do great work. By connecting technicians to organizations in one easy-to-use platform and mobile app, Field Nation solves a critical challenge all service leaders worry about: accessing skilled labor. Unlike traditional job boards and labor platforms, Field Nation is built specifically for short-term, on-site service work. Businesses can build their flexible workforce for any skill, scout potential workers in every postal code, and organize go-to service crews fast. Tech professionals can search for work that fits their schedule, build their reputation and get paid within days of project completion. Our mission is to match every contractor with the right job and connect every service team to professionals who care as much about the work as they do.

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Latest Resources from Field Nation:

Whitepaper - The Future of the Field Service Workforce



As technology transforms how companies interact with customers, field service organizations face particular challenges in adapting their business models to meet rising customer like.expectations. This whitepaper outlines what what the future of the service workforce might look like.

 

 

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Contingent Labor Cost Savings Calculator

This tool allows you to Calculate labor cost of a traditional W2 employee versus contractors and determine if using the contingent workforce can help your field service company. 

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Technician Coverage Map

This map represents the number of providers in each county who have request work in the last year. To use the map:

1. Select an industry
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Play around and see all the coverage we have to offer.

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Click here for a list of all our case studies and here for reviews from our customers, like the one below.

"The networking of techs across the United States at the accessibility of our fingertips. I like the reviews and profiles we are given of each technician that allows us to feel like we know the tech on a more personal level. I like that techs can be reviewed, giving us a better idea of who we are hiring on for a job."

 

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Tesseract’s Sales Director Kevin McNally, with over 15 year’s experience in the industry, explores the key elements with Kris Oldland Editor of Field Service News...

 

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Want to know more? A white paper on this topic is available for Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Click here to apply for your subscription now and we’ll send you the white paper to your inbox now instantly as a thank you for your time!

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[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ield Service Management technology has become essential to service delivery excellence. Service excellence is no longer a USP but a baseline requirement. However, whilst technologies such as IoT and Augmented Reality are grabbing the headlines their potential is greatly diminished unless you have a fundamental layer of technology in place already.

This two part article explores what to expect from a FSM system and offers best-practice tips to help you get the most from your investment...

Contract Management:

[quote]“The starting piece for everything is the contract and the control of the contract. Without that in place it is very difficult to bring everything else on top of that.”  Kevin McNally, Tesseract.

 

Contract management is often viewed as the starting point of almost everything within field service management operations. Without a view of your service contracts you cannot have to hand the answers for critical questions such as:

• What is the SLA on any given contract?
• Is a client under warranty or do they have an enhanced level of service contract
• Does a contract include spare parts and/or consumables?
• Is the service contract due for renewal?[/unordered_list]

You could be at risk of potentially not meeting your client’s expectations and so putting the potential of renewing or upselling service to that client in danger in the future – or on the other side of the coin, you could be giving valuable service away for free.

From the point of view of understanding the assets and also the entitlement that the customer is due as we go through a process of raising a service call or indeed, raising a sales order, we need to fundamentally understand what we should be doing with the entitlement for each specific client.

Scheduling:  

[quote]Optimised Scheduling in our world tends to be more geared to the planned maintenance aspects of service calls – i.e. for those companies who are looking to do things in advance and are looking for the best possible route to achieve this – Kevin McNally, Tesseract

 

Scheduling comes in a number of different guises and the various different names given to types of scheduling options can be a somewhat confusing but broadly scheduling will come in three flavours:

• Assisted Scheduling: Assisted Schedulers are essentially a manual tool, that as the name denotes offer a layer of assistance to the dispatcher making their job that little bit easier and thus increasing efficiency.
• Optimised Scheduling: With an optimised scheduling tool most of the work is done by the system. It will search through the scheduled service jobs and the available engineers and pull together an optimised work schedule for the day taking into account things like travel times and distances, priority jobs and field engineer skillsets etc. However, when things fall outside of established parameters, it is down to the dispatcher to make necessary adjustments to the schedule to make sure SLAs are met etc.
• Dynamic Scheduling: Dynamic scheduling is a further evolution of optimised scheduling that draws in data from mobile applications and telematics data etc to continuously revise the schedule throughout the day, reacting to situations such as a delayed engineer and reallocating jobs to ensure that the days schedule is continuously optimised.[/unordered_list]

Ultimately, when it comes to scheduling, it really is a case of horses for courses and establishing what is the best fit for your organisation.

Whilst not all companies will see a need for a dynamic scheduler, all but the smallest of organisations can benefit from at least some form of optimisation within their scheduling solution and the efficiencies that can be delivered are significant so it is an area of your FSM solution that you should get to understand and know fully.

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Want to know more? A white paper on this topic is available for Field Service News subscribers only - but if you are a Field Service Professional you may well qualify for a complimentary industry practitioner subscription!

Click here to apply for your subscription now and we’ll send you the white paper to your inbox now instantly as a thank you for your time!

 

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